


Opinions In Scarlet

by genarti



Series: Lunar Base ABC [7]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Blood, Gen, Kevin (sort of), Minor Injuries, basically all of this can be read as Bahorel Being Bahorel, minor offscreen violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 11:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4563060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You'd better not be getting biohazards on my table.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opinions In Scarlet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PilferingApples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilferingApples/gifts).



> This is a (slightly belated) birthday present for the delightful PilferingApples, who wanted cathartic punching and also friendship. I hope it suits!
> 
> Thanks to BobbieWickham for the beta!

"You'd better not be getting biohazards on my table."

Bahorel waved an airy hand at Louison. Her unimpressed look was perhaps justified by the smears of blood on his knuckles, although Louison herself (as well as any of Bahorel's friends) would likely have said that it was justified simply by knowing Bahorel. "I respect few rules in this world, but the right of a supervisor to hold sway with an iron fist in her own caf is one of them. Tyranny? No. There are many cafs, we are free to choose, I saunter my way from one to the next as the day's whim takes me. If I bring my bloody nose to yours, it's with the understanding that I will respect your rules, your gracious forbearance, your devotion to the dogma of health codes. I'm only bleeding on my own spare shirt, and I'll sanitize the coldpack before I bring it back."

This speech was delivered with gusto, but slightly hampered by the chemical coldpack pressed against his nose. It was, indeed, wrapped well in an artistically patched t-shirt, of an acidic green which had not originally been so spattered with red. 

"My Supervisor licensure thanks you for the sacrifice of your shirt," Louison told him drily, but with sincerity. "I trust you're not going to bring Guardians down on me either -- no, I thought not. In that case, why are you here?"

"I've used up the coldpacks in my room."

Louison dropped into the table's other chair. "That's a lawyerly answer and you know it."

Bahorel shot her a ferocious glare over the top of his bloody compress. "Did I say I respected you? I repent of that."

Louison waited, without much patience. The busy can rarely afford to make a habit of indulging dramatics.

"It's not broken -- a little ice and some no-swell will handle it fine, I'll get that from one of our Student Kevins as soon as they deign to appear -- and it's not worth the infirmary--"

Louison broke in, pointedly, "The _lunar_ infirmary?" The Lunar Bases prided themselves on the comprehensive quality and access of their medical care, in contrast to that of many societies of Earth, infectious disease or work-affecting injuries being generally seen as dangerous at best in a society in which so much depended on the combined (and enclosed) efforts of a few.

"--the lunar infirmary in which I just punched a doctor, yes."

"Ah."

Bahorel, unprompted, launched into his story. In deference to her limited time and patience, he kept it shorter than he might have; in revenge for the lawyer comment, he put in a full range of dramatic expression. The gist was that he had gone for a physical, the doctor had been rudely dismissive of his choices in fashion and tattooing and the politics they signaled, and Bahorel had expressed his displeasure in crude but unmistakable terms. "You cannot disapprove," he told Louison's skeptical eyebrows. "Come, now. It's a yearly physical and I'm thirty-one, you can toss that out the airlock for all anyone cares and certainly for all I do. But he ought to be better behaved to a patient. I taught him a valuable lesson. And then old Maillot gave me one in return in tossing me out, which is his right as an old schoolmate and a thoroughgoing fathead; I intend to ignore it entirely. But it was a beautiful punch. I don't begrudge it at all. I don't think he'd've hit anybody else back -- he waited till we were out of the infirmary, at which point he called me insults I won't repeat to your dainty ears and I punched him to satisfy both honor and desire -- but I grant him the one for old times' sake."

Louison regarded him steadily for a long moment. Bahorel grinned at her.

She rose. "I reserve the right to toss you out on your ear if you break my biohazard codes any further," she said. "In the meantime, you can have an iced coffee on the house."


End file.
